The Olympic Games in Lillehammer, set a bar that will never be surpassed. Pure magic !!!

Having told Terje that I would be arriving at the train station wearing a yellow coloured anorak for easy recognition, we didn’t realise that half the world be arriving also wearing yellow coats! This caused some initial problems of recognition, but eventually when all the other ‘coats’ had gone we were the only ones left, and Terje came up to us and said “You must be Roger and Vera I presume?” With our bags bundled into the car he took us on a slippery drive up to his house near the Maihaugen museum where we were then welcomed by his wife Alma. Little did we know then that this would be the start of another great family friendship which would last for years to come. Sadly, they have both now died.

Terje was a volunteer for OL, and had jobs to do during the two weeks we were there, mainly to keep the bobsleigh run at Hunderfossen tidy of all rubbish, a job he did with others very well. Alma took us around the local Lillehammer area and showed us the best way to get to the Olympic Park by a footpath along from the top of the road above their house. This was quite a long walk, as was the walk into the town, both of which we traversed many times during the two weeks we were there, with the airship going around overhead most days. Both of them treated us far better than just the paying guests that we were, and in true Norwegian fashion welcomed us fully into their family structure. We met their daughter Birgitte and her husband Tore, who had a small farm in Øyer, so we had something in common with them, and of course they spoke good English which was a bonus to us. Birgitte and Tore were part of a country dancing display at Hafjell during the games, and we have a long video of this, plus other happenings during those two weeks.

The weather was beautiful whilst we were there with blue skies all of the time, but the air temperature was not usually any warmer than -20 to – 25°C. Although we thought we had come prepared for the cold, we had never experienced anything like this before, for such a long period. We found that because the bus transport was a bit overwhelmed in the early days, we had to wait in a bus queue for 4 hours before being able to get on board to go to Kvitfjell for the downhill, which had finished by the time we got there. To say we got a bit cold is an understatement! We attended both the opening and closing ceremonies, which were equally cold, plus other events in Hamar and Gjøvik, which were indoors and a bit warmer. Basically, we went to one event every other day, and on the ‘off’ days did something different.

For us, we thought that attending these games would be the pinnacle of our years visiting this wonderful country, and despite OL94 being described as ‘The best winter games ever!’, which it really was, little did we know what was still in store for us in the future. I still have most of the mementos from the Games period, including my white cape which was worn at the opening and closing ceremonies to resemble the fact that we were covered in snow, for television purposes, and a full set of the newspapers that were issued during the OL period.

We continued visiting the country for another 28 years, until the onset of covid, which unfortunately upset travel so much that it was difficult to get there and back . However, in 2021 we managed to reach 60 years visiting the country, which shows that we must have really liked it. If I was young again, and know what I know now, I would move over there like a shot. Sadly, as we are now both over 80, I fear it is a bit too late. It’s my sort of place, so ‘takk for alt’, Norway! I now know why that is written on so many gravestones over there! The whole story of the 60 years can be seen on Youtube here , if you haven’t seen it before!

Roger Stokes